let’s read a book. or a bunch

To date, 14-year old Eddy Tumble’s greatest triumph consisted of scoffing a ‘fat lad’ quarter-pounder in 39 seconds. A truly breathtaking feat which had decimated Graham ‘gobbler’ Griffith’s record by a clear three seconds and a slice of gherkin.

How ironic that only a few weeks later, a rogue roast potato in his windpipe caused Eddy to collapse unceremoniously into a large bowl of lukewarm bread sauce.

Brought back to life by a race of accident-prone aliens, Eddy now finds himself fighting the diabolically deranged owner of Gut Bucket Holdings, Marcellus Guzzle, a bloodthirsty hit-gran, and an unhinged magpie with an unhealthy appetite for inflicting pain.

Death would undoubtedly have been the easier option!

– From the back cover because, let’s face it, I’m not sure I could have written it better!

*****

So one day I was at Half Price Books, perusing the kids books (don’t judge) and came across one of the best TITLES for a book I’d ever seen – The Toxic Toadburger Conspiracy. Then I looked at the cover and knew I had to own it. I wasn’t disappointed with my purchase! This is a damn silly book.

The premise is that a fairly average boy with an iron stomach needs to save the world from this horrible fast food man who has already managed to convince the world that we should be eating toads. Yuck. There are also some aliens, a hamster, some penguins (in some.. unexpected colors), various sealife and lots and lots of toads in this book. Gotta tell you, they should make this into a Broadway play if only for the costumes they’d need!

Now, I dunno about how they work in the UK- where this book is from- but here in the US we don’t kill people in kids books. Oh, wait, I know how they work in the UK – they *do* kill people in kids books! Woo hoo! I’d guess that you’d probably consider this a ‘young adult’ title, but let’s face it – the only people who want to read about toadburgers are kids or adults who frequently indulge their inner child. Or who are ruled by their inner child. Or something. All I’m saying is that this isn’t really going to appeal to the “Gossip Girl” or “Twilight” crowd. Maybe your 11 year old boy would like this one – as long as you don’t live near crows, toads or psychopathic Grandmas.

Is this the next great YA title? Nah, it’s from 2005 so it’s obviously not. But it’s lots of fun and heck, it’s got a great title. Ha!

so, what’s going on here?

Ever wonder how many books you read in a year? Or, maybe, how many pages? How long do you think it will take to get to a million?
I'm going to find out!
Starting Jan 1, 2009, we'll see how long it takes.